Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your Holy Spirit who leads us and guides us into all truth. We pray that you would help us to be attentive to his voice. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I live out in the country, way out in the sticks. I'm actually closer to the Tennessee line than I am to Asheville, North Carolina, in a place called Big Sandy Mush. And the only person that knows where that is is Scott Baker. and Leslie. And it's way out in the mountains and it's way up in the hills and we had five inches of snow this past week. It finally melted yesterday. But anyways, we live way out in the woods. And a regular week, we come to church on Wednesday night and we come to church on Sunday. And other than that, we're not out of the house. And so for us to see somebody, to share the gospel with them is really not very practical. My daughter lives about 125 feet from me and she's about 50 years old now. But that's the only people who live anywhere close to us. But probably you're in a situation where you have a job and you have to go there and You don't want to be spending the time that the boss is paying for you walking up and down sharing the gospel with people. And so usually most of our times are limited in what we can do in that regard, and I recognize that. And so when it comes to sharing the gospel in everyday life, there's really not a whole lot that we can do. But I've gathered some stuff from churches that we visited all over the United States and things that they do that I'm just gonna bounce off of. I'm not telling the leadership how to run the evangelistic program, but just some ideas that other churches have that we're gonna present to you this evening. Acts 20 and verse 20, and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shown unto you and taught you publicly and from house to house. Now Mel's an old guy and things have changed over the years in relationship to visitation in a community. And one of the reasons things have changed is because of home invasions. Do you understand what that means? Somebody gets into your house to take the house apart and they usually try to do that when you're not around. Every year in the United States of America, there's 3,700,000 home invasions in the United States of America. And people are aware of that. So you go up and knock on the door of somebody's house, and they're scared, okay? It used to be, way back in the dark ages, when Mel was a younger fellow, we never locked the doors of the house. even when we were away, but you do today. We never locked the doors to the church. Nobody ever gets shot in the church, right? That used to be true, but it's not where we're living today. So if you're out at a store, Might there be a possibility that somebody pulls out a gun and just starts shooting down everybody they can see? Yes. If you're at a public event, the missionaries that we support in France, the Bixbys, very close to where they live was one of those terrorist attacks at a soccer stadium. Who would ever think that you're out on the street just walking down the sidewalk and here comes somebody driving down the sidewalk just running over people? People they don't even know. That's the thing that blows my mind about all this. People that they don't even know, they're just running over and killing or shooting people they don't even know. Or like the church in Texas. Somebody just gets up and starts shooting people. Or one in South Carolina. Do you realize that Pastor Walker one time when he was away on assignment had a home invasion at his house? People broke into his house and stole all kind of stuff. We live in that climate. We didn't used to live in that climate and we can't bewail the fact that we don't live there anymore because that's not where we live. But the fact of the matter is when you go and knock on somebody's door, they're afraid. Now, I'm not going to ask anybody to raise their hands, but Mel has been known to sleep with a loaded gun under his pillow. And I don't know how many of you do, and that's totally up to you. Does anybody in here have a gun right now? I know. I've been in a lot of churches, and I see a guy sitting in a really weird position. in the church, and I'm like, why is he sitting that way? What is he doing there? And I look very carefully, and he's loaded. A lot of churches that I've been in, some of them, especially out west in Colorado, the guys that are carrying guns, it's open carry. You are allowed open carry in North Carolina, did you know that? Open carry is legal. Concealed carry, you have to have a permit. Open carry is legal. So if I come to church with a gun strapped on my hip, that's legal. If I have one hidden in my coat because I don't have a concealed carry permit, that's not legal. What I'm telling you all this about is when you go to visit somebody that you don't know and they don't know you and you show up at the door They're afraid, and you have to understand that in today's culture, there's real reason for them to be afraid. Now, that doesn't help our evangelistic outreach any, but it's just where we are today. And to go to house to house, we do that in foreign countries where we live. Our missionary in Mexico has a map of Cancun laid out, And he has all the houses that we visited there, and all the houses that he has yet to go. And he's systematically visiting every house. And in some countries you can do that, and in some you can't. And one of the countries where you can't is the United States of America. Some cities have ordinances about door-to-door visitation. I don't know whether Hendersonville does or not. But you have to abide by all those rules. And the reason I tell you all that stuff is because it's not as easy as it used to be to share the gospel in a community. However, we can do this one. How be it Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath compassion on thee. There was this demoniac. It was a crazy guy. I mean, a wild man. Nobody could tame him. Nobody could chain him. He was just off-the-wall ballistic. And everybody just stayed as far away as possible. And when Jesus showed up, he cast out the demons. And the demon-possessed man said to Jesus, I'm going to go with you. And Jesus said, no, you're not. You're going to go home to your friends. We can all talk to our friends. They know us. They're not, I hope your friends are not scared of you that you're going to get after them with a gun. If that's the kind of person you are, I can understand. But no, really, our friends aren't afraid. You know, we say, could I come by and talk to you for a little bit? And they say, sure, come over. And you can talk to them. When I was pastoring in Pennsylvania, people would come to me and say, would you go and see my friend so-and-so? And I said, have you talked to them about the Lord first? That's where you start. And I said, if you've talked to them first, then after you've talked to them, you tell me and you and I will go see them. You can do that. You talk to your friends. I like it here at Grace Baptist Church. I hope you do too. Invite people to come here. The pastor will hang them from the ceiling, if nothing else. So the servant came and showed his lord these things, and the master of the house, being angry, said unto the servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. Just the phrase, the streets and lanes of the city. I was in Chicago at a church and I stand at the pastor's house and population was decreasing in this church. And I asked him about visiting and he said, God's going to build his church. And I said, yeah, I believe that, but I believe he's going to use you to do that. And I don't usually, I didn't usually do this to pastors, but it was just he and me sitting on his front porch. And I said to the pastor, I said, did you ever go across the street and invite your neighbor to your church? You know what he told me? No, he hadn't. I said, did you ever walk to the neighbor on this side of you, these people that live right next door here, did you ever walk to their house and share the gospel with them? No, he never done that. He said, God's going to build his church. I said, yeah, but God wants to use you to build the church and he wants you to go to the streets and lanes of your city across the road from your house down the street from your house and down the street from the other house because those people really know you. You're a neighbor. You're a good neighbor, right? And invite them to your church. They may not come. That's okay. But at least they ought to have an invitation. Streets and lanes of the city. Now when you get real far away from your house, Then people are not going to know you anymore. They're going to be scared of you, OK? The servant said, the Lord has done as I has commanded, and yet there is room. Now, I know when you look around here, especially Sunday morning, there doesn't look like there's much room. And I don't know whether I'm allowed to say this or not, but they're talking about building a new auditorium for us so that you'll have room. Wouldn't that be neat? And you can invite more people in and there'll be more room. All you need to do is give the pastor a million dollars and he'll be glad to take care of that for you. No, seriously, they are thinking about and talking about building another building and having our overflow down in the fellowship hall for maybe a little while until we get that taken care of. But God can do that. God can supply us a building if we pray about it. And there'll be room. But there's always room in heaven, right? There's room in heaven. And we want people to be in heaven. We don't want people to be in hell. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason to hope that lieth within you with meekness and fear. It doesn't say lieth within you. Are you ready when someone asks a question? Now sometimes the question comes in a really strange way. They'll look at you and say, wow, you are really different. Or they might even say it this way, you are weird. And you're like, I am? What that means is you are different from them. That doesn't mean that they're saying they don't want anything to do with you. They just want to know what makes you tick. And what makes you different is you're a changed person. You're a blood-bought person. You're not the world, it's all about me kind of person. It's about loving other people, being concerned about other people, reaching out for other people. And so they ask questions sometimes in a weird way, and sometimes we just are not ready for that question to come that opens the door to share the gospel with them, because we're not ready. But we need to be ready. And when the question comes, and right off it seems kind of offensive, they're saying, boy, you're a kook, aren't you? And it was like, whoa, what does that mean? And you ask him, what makes you think that? What do I do that makes you think that I'm weird? And it'll open some interesting doors. Therefore disputed he with them in the synagogue, with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Paul had an in-town job. Now, an in-town job in that day was sort of like a flea market today, where you make stuff and you're selling stuff. And Paul was making tents and selling tents. But the main purpose was not, although it earned him an income, it wasn't so that he could sell tents. It was because it was a place where a lot of people came by. There was a lot of people traffic. And when people are on a people traffic area, they're more open to receive things. How about in a store? A lady made a bracelet for Jan with a wordless book. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Wordless book for kids, okay. And it has all the colors of the wordless book on it. We were in Walmart and the cashier asker about the bracelet. She said, what's with the bracelet? And Jan looked behind her and there was nobody else in line. And all of the rest of the places where there were checkout people, there were people in line. So Jan went through the wordless book with her. And when she was finished, there was still nobody else in her line. And sometimes that works that way. You're in a place, and somebody asks the question, and you can give them a gospel presentation. Places of business. If you run your own business, and there's some people here that run their own business, you can put out tracts, you can have signs up, Bible verses, and you don't have to preach to everybody that comes through the door. But it's to get them to ask a question in a place of business. Farmer's markets and flea market. We have a farmer's market near here. You know what a farmer's market is? Why are you laughing, Scott? OK, tell me later. Flea markets. There's a Smiley's flea market down the road, isn't there? We have found in most foreign countries that there's markets where all kind of people are coming through. There's all kind of vendors in all kind of places. And actually in Uruguay, most all of our people that are in full-time ministry were won at a flea market in Montevideo, Uruguay. It's a great place, because I have a few pictures a little later that I'll show you from there. But people feel safe there. And people are handing them stuff anyways, and advertisements, and cards, and everything else. So when you hand them a track, they just take a track and keep on trucking on. But I have pictures where we handed a person a track, and within three minutes, they were sitting down in front of a truck reading the track. And it's a good thing to do because it's a safe place as far as people are concerned. Festivals, street fairs, fairs, Western North Carolina Ag Center, how many know what in the world that is? How many think we're not country people, so we don't do ag, right? Churches can set up a booth. We know some people who go around the United States of America with a trailer, and they hit every fair, and they work with churches. I was at a church in Harrington, Delaware, and while I was there, the state fair for Delaware was going on, and the people that were working the fair had their trailer parked at the church, and you can do that. When I was a young fellow in high school, we had a county fair in Pennsylvania and we would go there and set up a booth and pass out tracks and sometimes people would stop and talk to us and we could share the gospel with them. Festivals, I've heard this place there's called the Apple Festival. Isn't this weird place called Hendersonville, North Carolina? There's a barbecue festival someplace. Try on, right? Guess what? There's lots of people there. Farmington, Maine. How many know what Farmington, Maine is? I figured there might be some people that know where Farmington, Maine is. Brian Ruppert is a pastor there. Every time they have a parade, they're in the parade with the church. People know who they are. People talk to them. They can talk to people. Just be friendly and be helpful wherever you are. If we're at a place, let's say we're at Cracker Barrel and I'm waiting for my table. I'm just talking to everybody that's in the store like I've known them for all my life. And they start talking to me like we've known each other for all our life when we haven't at all. But just be that way. Just talk to people. And God will open some awesome doors for you. Sunday afternoon in Montevideo in Uruguay, they say that it's the largest flea market in the world. Now, whether that's true or not, I have no clue. This is our director, Ken Jensen. He was here back from Mission Conference, you remember. This is Miriam, a pastor's wife. This is Chicha, Maria Teresa Rodriguez. That's her name for real. We call her Mother Teresa, but she doesn't like that. And we're passing out tracks, you see. We have guys behind our literature table here, and they're preaching messages over a loudspeaker. This is Nicholas, and you see a lady's coming by with a baby, and she's not afraid Nicholas is gonna take her little baby or hurt her at all. And she takes the track. and she doesn't throw it on the floor. This is Susanna and this is Marco. Now Marco is not a little Marco anymore. He's like this big. But even kids can pass out tracks. A lot of times if I had a little kid, I could borrow one of David's kids, little girls, and if she was standing beside me and I'm passing out tracks and she's passing out tracks, she'll get a lot more takers than I will. I don't know why that happens. But sometimes I've said to somebody, buddy, do you have any little kids that I could borrow? And I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation, for I have written a letter unto you. Do you know sometimes in scripture, prophets sent messages by letter. I mean, they delivered the message sometimes verbally, face to face, but sometimes they sent letters. to kings even. And it was still the word of God. And we can send letters. Now today, the letters are electronic. How many know what electronic is? Okay. We all know what text is. My daughter, I have a daughter that lives in Greenville. And my youngest daughter lives in Greenville. And she said, dad, just text me. And I said, honey, I'm sorry. I cannot do that. I have to hear your voice. And she said, dad, just text me. I said, nope. God, I hear your voice. But anyways, text people, email people. Every once in a while on my Facebook page, I get an invitation to a church in Pennsylvania or Ohio or Colorado. And I'm like, I'm living in North Carolina. Invite people. to our church on Facebook. Anybody else have a blog here? There's two people. Anybody know what I'm talking about a blog? It's like a log with a B in front. Forget it. You communicate with people. You can talk to people. I don't have a blog either, okay? But I get on other people's and deal with issues. They're dealing with issues. And all of a sudden, you might get an individual begin to write you individually and wanting questions and answers. How many of you are President Trump? No. Twitter? Skype? I love Skype. I can talk to a missionary any place in the world. It doesn't cost me a single cent. When we were in Croatia one time, I had a work crew with me, some people from Oak Ridge Baptist Church and one from Binghamton, New York. And we were working on Missionaries House. And we'd already had our services for the day. You understand there are seven hours in front of our time here. And they had set up a Skype thing with the church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Oak Ridge, that we were supposed to have a Skype session. And Jan and Tonya came flying over to the house where we were working and said, you know, in half an hour, we have a Skype session with Oak Ridge Baptist Church. And we were all covered with plaster and a mess. And so we threw everything down and ran over the house, cleaned up a little bit, and we had our Skype session. You can do that with people. There's LinkedIn. Now, I don't know how I ever got LinkedIn to LinkedIn, but I did. It amazes me. LinkedIn is supposed to be a professional site. And somebody wrote that they were fixing the meal for their family that day, and they are a chef. You can call people on the phone. A lot of people who are starting churches just go through the phone book and call everybody just down the line. They just call everybody and invite them to church. Now obviously everybody's not going to come and obviously there are going to be a lot of people that already have a church and are satisfied with where they are. But it doesn't hurt to give them an invitation. Letters, that's an old-fashioned thing. I don't think any of us, I send some letters sometimes. Some churches have yard signs. In other words, if you live along the highway, especially if you would live along this highway or some of the highways near our church, have a sign that says, I attend Grace Baptist Church, East Flat Rock. Or have a license plate on the front of your car. My license plate on the front of my car says the Wilds Christian Camp. So there's no room for Grace Baptist Church. Awake to righteousness and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. They're supposed to hear. We fulfilled our task when they've heard. It's not our job to make them believe. And if they don't believe, it doesn't mean you haven't done your job. You understand that? When you've delivered the message, the job is done as far as you're concerned. Now somebody else may also deliver the message, but when the message is delivered, the responsibility lies in the hearer then and not in the person who was supposed to deliver the message. But if we haven't delivered the message, shame on us. When we have delivered the message, God says, well done, good and faithful servant. And we are witnesses of these things. What is a witness? Think courtyard. No, think courtroom. Courtroom witness. That's a person who sees, has seen something that has happened. You are a witness about what God did in your life to bring you to salvation. That's what you tell people. I was saved when I was a little fella in fifth grade. Child Evangelism Fellowship had a lady that came to our public school and during public school time shared the gospel and Mel got saved. Mel realized he was a sinner. Mel realized that God loved him and wanted to save him from his sins. And he accepted that gift of God when he was just a little old fifth grader because somebody shared the message of the gospel. And I can witness to that because it's what happened to me. And whatever happened to you in the circumstances around when you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, that's your witness. This is what God did for me. This is where I go to church. to be strengthened in the faith, to be conformed to the image of Christ, Grace Baptist Church is flat rock. Why don't you come with me? And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness. The religious leaders of the day told the disciples, be quiet. We don't want to hear many more about Jesus Christ. We don't want you to be blaming us for his death. Although they were guilty. But they didn't want it said. They said, we want you guys to be quiet. So we're going to whoop you a little bit, beat you with the whip, tear your skin apart, and now you're going to shut up. Excuse the bad language. And we don't want to hear any more. When they were filled with the Holy Ghost, they didn't say, OK, we've got to be quiet now because people don't like us talking about Jesus. No, they spake the Word of God with boldness. And if you lack boldness, talk to the Holy Spirit and ask for a refilling, and then the boldness will be there that you can do the job. Then shall we deliver it up and to be afflicted and shall kill you and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." We live in that time in the United States of America. Christian people in other countries are being executed worse than Fox's Book of Martyrs today, 2018, January. We don't hear about it because they don't care except there's some atrocious thing that the Muslims do to behead people. When you're sharing the gospel, people do not like it. A lot of them don't. They don't want to hear it. They're going to be really mad. They're going to be really hateful. They may be verbally abusive. So far, not physically abusive for most of us. But that's the reality of the situation. And that's what Jesus said would happen And we see it for real. Again, the old guy, old Grandpa Mel. It used to be Christians were respected. They were honored. People looked up to them. Now they are despised and loathed by the world, the unsaved world. And we're not supposed to be surprised at that. But neither are we to back down because that's the case. You shall be hated. We're going to be hated. And for you younger people, it's going to be worse as you get older. But you've got to have the courage to stand and do what God wants you to do. And when they found them, They drew Jason and certain brethren to the rulers of the city, crying, these that have turned the world upside down are come hither also. The world does not want to be turned upside down. They want it to be in the mess that it's in. But when God's people come along and people accept Christ as their savior and they begin to live a different lifestyle, the world says the world's turned upside down. This bunch that Paul's heading up is a bunch of crazies. They've messed our lives up. Things are not running right. That's our job, to turn the world upside down. And when we've done our job, it's gonna be a mess. They're not gonna like it anymore. It's not the way to make friends and influence people, except for God. And we want God to be influenced. Are you ready? Are you ready with your witness? Are you prepared when somebody asks you a really strange question? You know, man, what makes you tick? And you're different. You're weird. You're a kook. You're off the wall. What's with you? Let me tell you what Jesus did for me. Let me tell you what he's promised me. He loves me. He loves you. Are you ready? Back in the dark ages when I was able, I ran track. And you get down on the starting line, You put your hands out on the starting line, just on the back side of the starting line, and the starter says, get ready, get set. And that's when you set. And you have blocks behind you that you put your feet up against so that whenever he pulls the trigger on the gun, you're out of there like a boat. And we need to be set. Not get ready and eventually I'll get set and I'll be ready to share the gospel, but we need to be ready and set. So when the gun goes off, we go. We share the gospel. Proclaiming Christ. You don't get a whole bunch of opportunities. I know that. I live in that type of situation too. But we don't want to miss any. if we can help it. Sometimes we're gonna miss them. I still miss them sometimes. I just tell the Lord, I'm sorry I missed that one. Please give me another shot at that person. But we have to get ready, and we have to get set, and we have to go. Are you ready to proclaim Christ in everyday life? God loves you. God loves the people that you can contact. And when you've delivered the message, God's commendation is, well done, good and faithful servant. And allow the fullness of the joy of our Lord. Shall we pray? Our Father, we thank you. You came to seek and to save that which was lost. And we thank you that you have called us to be witnesses and to be carriers of the message of your love to others. And we pray that you would help us that we might be able to find those opportunities and create opportunities that you make for us for that regard. Be with these thy people, shelter them under thy wings, and enfold them with everlasting arms of love as they go about the duties and responsibilities which you have for them this week, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.